Office 365 productivity-enhancing features you probably didn’t know about

Thanks to Office 365, offices have made great strides in increasing collaboration and efficiency. Some Office 365 features — like linking to files to prevent bulky email attachments — are so crafty that users tend to overlook them. This seems like a very basic feature that ought to be used by everyone, yet many miss out on taking advantage of such a simple, time-saving functionality.

By now, you probably already know that multiple users can edit a Word, Excel, PowerPoint or OneNote file at once — undoubtedly an indispensable feature. But did you know that you can also convert a pdf file to a Word document for editing, and password-protect it while working on it in the cloud? Beyond this and other notable features, Office 365 has more tricks up its sleeve that let you be more efficient and save even more time.

Skype-chat while working on a file

Multiple users simultaneously editing a single document is great, but Office 365 takes it up a notch by allowing users to Skype chat in real-time while co-editing a document.

The Skype in-app integration makes this possible and is perfect for collaborating with colleagues in remote locations. It allows a more visual interaction since the Skype in-app tool lets users take screenshots or, better yet, have video calls while performing tasks like editing HR reports, amending financial statements, or reviewing marketing briefs.

Instead of being just able to make edits, you and your co-editors can chat without having to switch to a separate program.

Zero clutter with Clutter on Outlook

With hundreds of emails to sort daily, you probably have no time to decide which ones warrant reading and sorting. A practical solution in the form of an email-sorting tool called “Clutter” is hiding in plain sight, and you need to start using it now.

Clutter helps save time by putting low-priority emails out of your Outlook inbox to highlight the more important messages. This intelligent tool helps Office 365 users categorise email that’s tricky to classify; basically, these are the non-junk mails that you may want to open later. Clutter classifies emails based on user behavior and comes with an option to deactivate.

Enhanced visuals with PowerPoint Designer

Inserting one or two images in one slide is a basic PowerPoint function, but with PowerPoint Designer, you can add more than two images, which can make your presentations sizzle with captivating visuals.

This PowerPoint enhancement comes with a color extraction capability where color pallets of inserted images are analysed and applied to your slides’ color scheme. This makes for more visually appealing and professional-looking presentations. It works with various PowerPoint themes, too.

PowerPoint design also throws in a facial recognition tool. No, it doesn’t name the person in the image, but it recognises people’s faces and ensures that they get a prominent placing in slides where cropping out faces is necessary, making life easier for novice photo editors.

Better security status with Secure Score

It’s safe to say that Office 365’s environment is secure, but once you grant access to people outside your organisation, do you have any means to determine security? If you don’t, check the score.

You can do that and more with Office 365’s suite of security and compliance tools, Secure Score, Threat Intelligence Private Preview, and Advanced Data Governance Preview. While the latter two features will launch in full mode in late first quarter of 2017, Office Secure Score is now available.

Office 365 Secure Score lets you take a better view of your company’s security status through an analytics tool that lets you gather insights on your Office 365’s ecosystem’s security. From these insights, you can determine the best courses of action to improve your office’s security configurations.

Office 365’s usefulness to businesses cannot be emphasised enough. These are but a few of the under-used but handy tools that you should start using now. At Austin Technology, we make sure you get the best value for your business’s applications. Call us now for Office 365 tips and plans.